<a href=www.vheadline.com>Venezuela's Electronic News Posted: Sunday, April 20, 2003 By: Gustavo Coronel

"But even supposing blood should flow. Is there not a sort of bloodshed when the conscience is wounded? ... I see this blood flowing now" Henry Thoreau, "On the Duty of Civil Disobedience," 1849.

VHeadline.com commentarist Gustavo Coronel writes: If Thoreau was here today he would see the blood flowing out of our wounded consciences. He could clearly see how a President breaks promises. He would join with us in suspecting the motives of this government and in distrusting their actions and their words.

Our consciences are bleeding with good reason. Although this government promised to fight corruption, poverty and crime, all of these social afflictions are now worse than ever.

Street children are more numerous, in spite of the Presidential promise to "resign if he had not ended this problem in six months."

La Carlota is still an airport, not the park he promised 2 years ago.

Miraflores is still the Presidential Palace, not the "popular university" that he promised 2 years ago.

Although he promised 4 years ago that he would sell all government airplanes since having them was "immoral" he flies around in a $65 million new Airbus.

Although he promised never to dress in military uniform again, he does it regularly although a new size is now required.

Our consciences are bleeding because the actions of the government have placed the country in a disastrous situation. Chavez has started a "revolutionary offensive" patterned after the one started by Castro in Cuba in early 1970.

It is an offensive designed to annihilate the middle class and the private sector. As the Cuban offensive converted Cuba into the Albania of Latin America, this offensive is converting Venezuela into a Latin Zimbabwe.

The offensive includes exchange and price controls, the destruction of private companies, the dismantling of PDVSA, the promotion of invasions of private and productive lands and the establishment of a regime of terror to encourage the emigration of dissenters. This offensive would allow the government to control whatever is left of the country.

We have to remember that the main motive of Chavez is not social progress but political control. To him, a sound economy is not important while social unrest could well be an ally of his authoritarian agenda since it would justify repression.

Our consciences are bleeding because we do not have a government but a regime, because we do not see programs but empty rhetoric, because we see no plans but new restrictions and obstacles to the exercise of citizenship.

Hugo Chavez has violated his social contract with the nation. His mandate had to do with democratic change, not with a "revolution" which is only a throwback to the 19th century.

We are, therefore, at a critical moment in Venezuela.

The country urgently needs to vote on whether this man goes or stays.

This is urgent because every day that goes by the Nation deteriorates significantly, corruption gains ground, violence increases, hate becomes deeply entrenched, criminals rejoice, the poor starve.

We have to vote without further delay, without any more "tricks," like Carter said.

If this urgent and civilized option is somehow stolen from us ... then we will march with the spirit of Henry Thoreau in total civic disobedience ... and blood will flow.

Gustavo Coronel is the founder and president of Agrupacion Pro Calidad de Vida (The Pro-Quality of Life Alliance), a Caracas-based organization devoted to fighting corruption and the promotion of civic education in Latin America, primarily Venezuela. A member of the first board of directors (1975-1979) of Petroleos de Venezuela (PDVSA), following nationalization of Venezuela's oil industry, Coronel has worked in the oil industry for 28 years in the United States, Holland, Indonesia, Algiers and in Venezuela. He is a Distinguished alumnus of the University of Tulsa (USA) where he was a Trustee from 1987 to 1999. Coronel led the Hydrocarbons Division of the Inter-American Development Bank (IADB) in Washington DC for 5 years. The author of three books and many articles on Venezuela ("Curbing Corruption in Venezuela." Journal of Democracy, Vol. 7, No. 3, July, 1996, pp. 157-163), he is a fellow of Harvard University and a member of the Harvard faculty from 1981 to 1983.  In 1998, he was presidential election campaign manager for Henrique Salas Romer and now lives in retirement on the Caribbean island of Margarita where he runs a leading Hotel-Resort.  You may contact Gustavo Coronel at email gustavo@vheadline.com

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Referendum 2003 discuss the pros and cons of a revocatory referendum

President Hugo Chavez Frias express your opinions on the Presidency of Hugo Chavez Frias and his Bolivarian Revolution

Bolivarian Circles Are Bolivarian Circles a Venezuelan form of Neighborhood Watch Committees or violent hordes of pro-Chavez thugs?

Venezuela's Opposition What is it? Is a force to be reckoned with or in complete disarray?

Our editorial statement reads: VHeadline.com Venezuela is a wholly independent e-publication promoting democracy in its fullest expression and the inalienable  right of all Venezuelans to self-determination and the pursuit of sovereign independence without interference. We seek to shed light on nefarious practices and the corruption which for decades has strangled this South American nation's development and progress. Our declared editorial bias is pro-democracy and pro-Venezuela ... which some may wrongly interpret as anti-American. --  Roy S. Carson, Editor/Publisher  Editor@VHeadline.com

<a href=www.vheadline.com>Venezuela's Electronic News Editorials Express Your Opinion Posted: Sunday, April 20, 2003 By: Alvaro Sanchez

USA-based commentarist Alvaro Sanchez writes: At times, some Venezuelans, as well as non-Venezuelans, seem to forget the real promises made by current President Hugo Chavez when he was a candidate running for office. Unlike previous Presidents, Chavez did not promise to make a millionaire out of each citizen.

On the contrary, Chavez announced time and again that there would be obstacles along the way in order to fully make, implement, and enforce sound policies directed towards the eradication of poverty and the construction of an egalitarian society.

Indeed, Chavez' political platform included the following points: the restructuring of the Venezuelan political system, participation of the State in state-related matters, fair distribution of income, the fight against corruption, and perhaps the most importantly, accountability of lower levels of government as well as active grassroots political participation for community improvements. Both the Venezuelan and international media did a poor job of presenting the true meaning of these grassroots organizations.

These grassroots movements are known as Bolivarian Circles, after Venezuela's forefather: Simon Bolivar. Endorsed by the Venezuelan president and supported by the majority of the population, Bolivarian Circles grouped community leaders and neighbors alike. They worked hand in hand in order to make ends meet at various shantytowns, neighborhoods, and villages across Venezuela.

For instance, instead of waiting for the President, or another high authority or power of the government, to arrive at Barrio La Palomera, near Baruta, Miranda State, neighbors and community leaders, mostly women, went ahead and organized themselves to secure a badly-needed medical supply dispensary. In addition, they worked together on the beautification and clean up of La Palomera.

By the same token, Bolivarian Circles across Venezuela began an extensive social and political activism intended to aid the usual disenfranchised population of Venezuela. Other Bolivarian Circles, for example, concentrated their work and efforts on feeding the hungry, providing after school care for poor children, securing resources for small businesses, etc.

President Chavez did his best to provide the means and resources necessary for these Bolivarian Circles to be able to help themselves. Thus, the Venezuelan National Assembly, with the support of the President, passed legislation and appropriated funds for the creation of a line of credit available for small businesses, particularly those owned by low-income Venezuelans, women, Native Americans (Indians), and other minorities.

Along with the Bolivarian Circles, President Chavez implemented Plan Bolivar 2000. The plan allowed President Chavez to mobilize the Venezuelan Armed Forces in poor areas of the country with the goal of providing health care, subsidized food, construction equipment, school tutoring, and logistical organization to those who needed it most: the poor in the shantytowns of Caracas and other large cities of Venezuela.

All of this, on its own, represented a major achievement, especially in a country like Venezuela, where unfortunately most of the people were not used to grassroots community organization and development.

Moreover, President Chavez also suggested that Bolivarian Circle members had to carry on a civic duty as well.

By this, President Chavez meant that members were in charge of learning and teaching their constitutional rights and responsibilities. Members of Bolivarian Circles thereby became the common defenders of the Venezuelan Constitution. Even though the Venezuelan Constitution was ratified and voted on, and for, by almost 80% of the voting population in the National Referendum of 1999, this Constitution was outlawed by the 48-hour government that presided Venezuela after the April 11th military-civilian coup.

Venezuela's Bolivarian Circle members then put into practice all the civic and community training they had obtained in previous years and implemented an active demonstration that ultimately allowed, not only President Chavez back in office, but also the Venezuelan Constitution to freely reign in a country meant to be free by its brave people.

The immediate reaction of the Venezuelan opposition was to demonize the Bolivarian Circles.

After all, the Bolivarian Circles were the ones that rescued and guaranteed democracy in Venezuela. Opposition leaders and followers accused Bolivarian Circles of being armed and practitioners of terrorism. The Venezuelan and international media, major allies of the Venezuelan opposition, did their job by conveying such false messages through newspapers, radio, and television broadcasts. In the end, these poor grassroots Bolivarian Circles, with their limited resources and inefficient public relations, had to compete for public approval against major media corporations worldwide.

This was a remake of David and Goliath, Venezuelan style.

What makes such media reaction even more irrational, if not laughable, is that in neighboring Colombia a somewhat similar program was created, yet television, radio, and newspapers said nothing to criticize it. Indeed, Colombian President Alvaro Uribe also encouraged Colombian citizens to organize themselves at a community level. However, contrary to Chavez' community improvement and civics-oriented call, Uribe's own Red de Informantes (Informants Network) pretended to align, engulf, and engage poor Colombian peasants into a war with no end in sight.

As a matter of fact, while governor of Colombia's Antioquia State, Uribe developed a similar program, CONVIVIR, and its results were disastrous for poor countryside people. Indeed, Colombian and international human rights activists condemned CONVIVIR as nothing less than an institutionalized program for the "paramilitarization" of civilians. According to these human rights groups, Uribe's CONVIVIR did absolutely nothing positive for the improvement of the needy.

Where was the international media when it was time to criticize Uribe's Red de Informantes?

Why were the Bolivarian Circles evaluated by different standards than the Red de Informantes?

International media needs to answer these questions, for otherwise its credibility will suffer tremendously. Also, Colombian citizens should confront and oppose President Uribe's aggressive programs, as well as Colombian and international media, for looking the other way, thereby allowing such climate of confrontation to take place in Colombia.

In Venezuela, on the other hand, Bolivarian Circles have not been given the opportunity to show their true meaning.

The Venezuelan opposition as well as the Venezuelan and international media have stopped the Bolivarian Circles from presenting their humanitarian character.

• Nonetheless, with or without Chavez in office, Bolivarian Circles will continue their quest to improve conditions in Venezuela at a community level.

President Chavez did fulfill his campaign promise of providing the tools for self-help and political awareness ... he planted the seeds ... and future generations, as well as history, will one day appreciate such generous actions.

Alvaro Sanchez was born in Venezuela and is a middle school teacher in Miami. He is a graduate of the State University of New York – Albany. He is currently working on his Master’s Degree in Latin American history.  You may email him at a2000@rocketmail.com

Our editorial statement reads: VHeadline.com Venezuela is a wholly independent e-publication promoting democracy in its fullest expression and the inalienable  right of all Venezuelans to self-determination and the pursuit of sovereign independence without interference. We seek to shed light on nefarious practices and the corruption which for decades has strangled this South American nation's development and progress. Our declared editorial bias is pro-democracy and pro-Venezuela ... which some may wrongly interpret as anti-American. --  Roy S. Carson, Editor/Publisher  Editor@VHeadline.com  

<a href=www.vheadline.com>Venezuela's Electronic News Posted: Sunday, April 20, 2003 By: Patrick J. O'Donoghue

Venezuela's Yare II prison was rocked with serious rioting on Friday resulting in the death of 11 inmates and 34 wounded. According to prison authorities, the cause of the riot was infighting between gangs to gain control of prison racketeering and extortion. 

• Miranda State Firefighter chief, Benis de Lima says 10 inmates died inside the jail and 1 in hospital, 10 to 15 prisoners are in hospital in a critical state.  

Since Friday, Interior & Justice Minister General (ret.) Lucas Rincon Romero has confirmed a total 12 deaths and dozens of wounded, adding that the situation is under control. "There's a scarcity of prison guards throughout the prison system." 

The General has promised a thorough investigation to discover the causes. 

Las Ultimas Noticias supplies an answer to the General's question, stating that there are three gangs fighting for control of the prison. "Miranda State Judiciary Circuit president, Luis Guevara says the riot had nothing to do with complaints about delayed legal processes but infighting over transfers to other prisons, which started boiling over last Wednesday."

<a href=www.vheadline.com>Venezuela's Electronic News Posted: Sunday, April 20, 2003 By: Patrick J. O'Donoghue

Replying to US Secretary of State Colin Powell's latest remarks on Venezuelan democracy, Venezuelan Foreign Minister Roy Chaderton Matos wryly comments that someone is not briefing Secretary Powell properly, especially as regards the recall referendum ... "it's in the law of laws, the Constitution." 

Hammering home his point, Chaderton Matos says the recall referendum was brought into Venezuelan democracy not by an opposition initiative but by an initiative of the Bolivarian government. 

The second part that Powell should have been briefed about, according to the Venezuelan Foreign Minister, is that those who shouldn't be trusted belong to the greater part of the opposition. 

Recalling the events of April 11-14, 2002, Chaderton Matos accuses the opposition of provoking huge scale social and political upheavals, attempting to strangle the country economically, causing financial panic and using media terrorism to get rid of President Chavez Frias. 

"The recall referendum is an absolutely constitutional and legal democratic exercise and not an acid test." 

Speaking during April 19 Declaration of Independence celebrations, Chaderton Matos reports that his Ministry will respond opportunely with documents pertaining to the Colombian Army's objections to allegations made by Venezuelan Executive Vice President Jose Vicente Rangel regarding collusion with paramilitaries in border badlands. 

The Minister says both governments are working around the clock in preparation of the April 23 summit in Puerto Ordaz between Presidents Alvaro Uribe and Hugo Chavez Frias ... "democracy is working quite well between the two countries ... we are converging ... Colombians and Venezuelas will not engage in fistfights and much less bullets ... the summit agenda will be varied and revolve around common interests."

Forums

Referendum 2003 discuss the pros and cons of a revocatory referendum

President Hugo Chavez Frias express your opinions on the Presidency of Hugo Chavez Frias and his Bolivarian Revolution

Bolivarian Circles Are Bolivarian Circles a Venezuelan form of Neighborhood Watch Committees or violent hordes of pro-Chavez thugs?

Venezuela's Opposition What is it? Is a force to be reckoned with or in complete disarray?

Our editorial statement reads: VHeadline.com Venezuela is a wholly independent e-publication promoting democracy in its fullest expression and the inalienable  right of all Venezuelans to self-determination and the pursuit of sovereign independence without interference. We seek to shed light on nefarious practices and the corruption which for decades has strangled this South American nation's development and progress. Our declared editorial bias is pro-democracy and pro-Venezuela ... which some may wrongly interpret as anti-American. --  Roy S. Carson, Editor/Publisher  Editor@VHeadline.com

<a href=www.sun-sentinel.com>Sun-Sentinel.comBy Doreen Hemlock Business Writer Posted April 20 2003

Visit The Kitchen Inc. in downtown Miami, and you'll find a team of engineers, actors, translators and marketers cooking up cable TV and satellite TV offerings for a global audience.

Upstairs, an engineer takes dubbing from Brazil sent over the Internet and mixes it with film to create a Portuguese-language Dragonball TV episode that can be broadcast back to South America, perhaps by satellite.

Downstairs, employees monitor satellite transmissions of more than a dozen pay TV channels, making sure the cartoons, soap operas, game shows and even Playboy TV programs arrive without a glitch in Mexico, Venezuela, Spain and other countries.

Welcome to the world of broadcast services, the latest stage in South Florida's evolution as a center for international pay TV. The Kitchen exemplifies how much South Florida has matured -- from mainly selling U.S. programs to Latin America into a sophisticated, full-service center that produces, dubs, packages and broadcasts cable and satellite TV programs worldwide.

Today's economic woes in Latin America have helped speed the evolution: In a classic case of turning lemons to lemonade, The Kitchen and its colleagues now are focusing more on Europe, Asia and U.S. ethnic markets, making the industry more global.

"Now, we take the sauce from Brazil, the cheese from Madrid, bake the pizza here in Miami and deliver it anywhere in the world," quipped Venezuela-born Juan Bernardo Alvarez, who heads up The Kitchen's language conversion services.

Only a decade ago, it would have been unthinkable that South Florida could host a broadcast services industry employing more than 1,000 people and featuring Latin American offices of such marquee names as Disney, MTV, HBO, MGM and Discovery.

Back then, Latin American nations were just starting to open their mainly government-controlled telecom markets to private and foreign investment. And satellite links to Latin America were so limited that cable companies couldn't easily send their signals to the region anyway. Industry analysts described the Latin pay TV industry at the start of the 1990s as being at about U.S. levels in the 1970s.

That all changed by the mid-1990s, as many Latin governments welcomed media investment, new satellites were deployed, and new technologies for compressing TV signals allowed all satellites to transmit more efficiently too.

Gary McBride remembers the fever that spread among U.S. companies to enter the new Spanish- and Portuguese-language market overseas. He was among the pioneers, launching Gems TV in Miami in 1993, a channel aimed at Latin women and akin to Lifetime.

"I think we were the fifth pan-regional channel," McBride said. "And within something like 18 months, I counted 70."

South Florida became the hub for the new pay TV industry for the same reasons it had become the gateway to Latin America for other businesses: It had the best airline connections to Latin America, multilingual talent, plus more accessible and affordable telecom and tech offerings than Latin American nations themselves

Arriving late to South Florida, the pay-TV industry also could build on the area's strengths: It could tap into the existing base of Spanish-language TV companies serving the U.S. market, including Hialeah-based network Telemundo. Plus, networks could draw on the hundreds of multinationals with Latin American offices as potential TV advertisers, from banks to hotel companies to software makers.

"You put it all together," McBride said. "It's a slam dunk."

Technology explosion

Since the mid-1990s, South Florida's broadcast services industry evolved for other reasons too: notably, relatively low costs and new technologies.

Greater Miami proved cheaper for TV production than rival sites in New York and Los Angeles, partly because it had little of the union labor that commands higher wages. That cost edge helped sway France Telecom in 1998 to buy Miami-based Hero Productions and invest $18 million in an expansion that now includes one of the biggest TV production studios in the Southeast.

"And in the past two years, those studios have been 100 percent occupied," mostly with shows in Spanish, said Hero founder Roberto "Bob" Behar, now president of France Telecom's Globecast America and dean of the South Florida industry.

New technologies also have spurred business, making it faster and easier to translate and distribute shows worldwide.

Miami Beach-based TM Systems revolutionized translation, dubbing and subtitling with software that earned a coveted Prime Time Emmy Award for Technical Achievement in 2002. The software does away with a decades-old system that had translators working with videotapes, jotting down lines, winding and rewinding tapes, requiring as much as 10 hours to translate a 30-minute show.

The new software instead lets translators work with computers, so they can watch digital versions of TV shows and type translations directly onto the screen, slashing their translation time by nearly a half.

Then, actors can watch the computer screens and get precise, digital cues on when to speak for dubbing a show into Spanish or other languages. And engineers can record the actors' voices directly into the computers, further slashing the time it takes to convert a show like South Park into Spanish or other languages, said Alvarez, The Kitchen's language services chief.

"What took eight hours of recording in one studio, we can now do in as little as an hour-and-a-half using several studios at the same time, if we have an emergency and need to rush out a show," Alvarez said.

High-speed Internet links further spur the business. Now, high-quality audio dubbed in Madrid, Berlin, Bogotá or elsewhere can be sent through computers to Miami for mixing with film and broadcast by satellite. Actors need not gather in a single studio.

South Florida has an edge for those Internet links, too, because it is a hub or "network access point" for many fiber-optic undersea cables that transport audio, video and text files worldwide. Companies in greater Miami have an ample supply of high-speed Internet connections at relatively low costs compared to other major cities, said The Kitchen's general manager, Belgium-born Pierre Jaspar.

"Our business couldn't have existed even six years ago," Jaspar said. "We didn't have the technology or the speed."

Going global

Still, most of South Florida's efforts in international pay TV were geared toward Latin America -- until recently.

Argentina's severe depression and a widespread slump in the Latin region since 2001 have forced companies to focus elsewhere, especially on the fast-growing U.S. Hispanic and multiethnic markets.

Globecast America now uses its Miami facilities to broadcast more than 60 radio and TV channels into U.S. homes on its World TV direct-to-home satellite platform, including some in Arabic, Turkish, German and Romanian. It also sends signals from Miami to Australia, Iran and other distant nations, even though other broadcast service providers may be closer, Behar said.

"When we were bought out by France Telecom, we found it's cheaper to provide service from Miami than from Europe in some cases," Behar said. That's because labor costs in Miami tend to be lower, plus South Florida sometimes has equipment and technical know-how that make its operations more efficient than those in France or elsewhere, he said.

The Kitchen also has expanded beyond its roots as the broadcast service arm of Claxson Interactive Group, a Latin American multimedia conglomerate. Jaspar said about 20 percent of The Kitchen's sales now come from Europe, Asia and Africa, with programs handled in at least 15 languages and an office also recently opened in Spain.

So far, the U.S. and global push from South Florida hasn't fully offset the slump in business to Latin America. The Weather Channel Latin America closed in December after six years of losses, cutting 80 jobs in Miami and Atlanta. And DirecTV Latin America, which operates a Fort Lauderdale office, in March sought protection from creditors under Chapter 11 of the U.S. bankruptcy code. Overall, South Florida's job tally in international broadcast services has slipped from a 2001 peak.

The pay TV industry for Latin America is working to counter the slump partly through a new trade group in Miami, the Latin American Multi-Channel Advertising Council, modeled after the Cable Advertising Bureau in the United States. It aims to boost the share of ad revenue spent on cable and satellite TV channels in the Latin region far beyond the $250 million spent in 2001.

But executives say South Florida's industry is sure to rebound, as the global economy picks up.

At The Kitchen, they're ready to mix up more batches of South Park and Brazil's El Clon to distribute worldwide.

Doreen Hemlock can be reached at dhemlock@sun-sentinel.com or 305-810-5009.